homeland by English tyranny, the British yoke enslaving Ireland. The British were . . . savage tyrants and cursed intruders. [and the] Foul British laws . . . were the whole cause of their emigration. British oppression was defrauding them of the fruits of their hard labor.(140)The British had been imposing upon the Irish since the early 12th century, when King Henry II took control of the country. The Irishs laws, religion, and customs dissolved as the British installed their own ideals. By the beginning of the 18th century, the Irish legally owned a mere 14 percent of their own country. Soon thereafter, the British landlords began to switch from agriculture to livestock production. Irish families were evicted from their homes, only to have their land capitalized upon by the British as pastures. While visiting Ireland in 1771, Benjamin Franklin commented that British colonialism and its emphasis on exports had reduced the Irish people to extremely poor tenants, living in the most sordid wretchedness, in dirty Hovels of Mud and Straw, and cloatheed only in Rags. The Irish had been forced to survive on Potatoes and Buttermilk, without Shirts, so that the Merchants could export Beef, Butter, and Linnen to England.(Takaki, 141)The Irish were soon to begin their mass movement to the New World across the Atlantic Ocean. Nearly half a century earlier, the Native Americans had already undergone a similar transformation. As he paved the path to peace . . . through blood, Andrew Jackson further attempted to justify he and his governments actions by proposing the Native Americans a somewhat of a compromise. He offered to reserve a section of western Mississippi to be guaranteed to the Indian tribes as long as they shall occupy it, and that they would be left to live free as long as the grass grows, or water runs.(Takaki, 87) These statement eventually proved to be empty promises. In 1829, the Georgia legislature passed a law giving...
